Boy (9) has his hands full as pet octopus Terrance hatches 51 babies

A family found themselves caring for 51 octopuses after they unwittingly bought a pregnant one, mistakenly thinking it was male.

Cal Clifford (9) had been obsessed with the creatures since he was two and his dentist father, Cameron, finally acquiesced.

Mr Clifford, a 36-year-old dentist from Oklahoma, duly bought a 230-litre tank as part of a surprise for Cal’s 9th birthday. He then bought a California twospot octopus from a local aquarium. It came by post, swimming inside a bag of water, and Terrance became a member of the family.

Initially, the Cliffords thought Terrance was male. Within a few weeks, they discovered that they were mistaken.

The tank in Cal’s bedroom in Edmund, Oklahoma, was packed with dozens of eggs.

Mr Clifford had assumed the eggs were not fertilised, but Terrance had mated before being caught by a diver. When Mr Clifford picked one up, a blob popped out and started swimming around the tank.

“I just screamed my wife’s name,” Mr Clifford told The Washington Post. “That started the whole stress of it because now we felt this immense responsibility of taking care of these babies.”

Baby number one was named Pearl. Then came Seaonce, Jay Sea, Swim Shady, Squid Cudi, Bill Nye the Octopi and Champ.

Within a matter of weeks, the Cliffords were caring for 51 of the creatures.

The Cliffords got off lightly. A giant Pacific octopus can produce more than 50,000 eggs, according to biologist Jim Cosgrove.

But caring for Terrance’s massive brood has proved rather expensive.

There has been a bill for individual homes for each of the offspring. Feeding them did not come cheap, with the family spending several thousand dollars for snails, clams and crabs. The family also had to pick up the tab for fixing water damage and a small fire.

“Do not get a pet octopus unless you’re ready to lose sleep and your kids’ college fund simultaneously,” Mr Clifford said.

The tale of Terrance and her children has gone viral with Mr Clifford’s TikTok videos being watched by 400,000 people.

“It’s something that I think a lot of people need because there’s so much bad news in the world,” Mr Clifford said.

Some of the baby octopuses died. The remaining 23 are living in the lap of luxury, each has its own plastic container and is being fed live mysid shrimp, which are specially imported from the US east coast. (© Telegraph Media Group Ltd 2024)